The Dallas Stars wander into Rexall Place tonight with a record of 33-26-5, clinging to the 8th place in the Western Conference. They are mildly hot with a record of 5-3-2 in their past 10 games and players like Jamie Benn and Mike Ribiero are taking care of business as best they can given their inferior skills and dim wits.

The Oilers haven’t played a game with any real importance to the standings in what seems like hundreds of years. But that doesn’t really matter all that much to the OilersNation who are beside themselves with excitement to see the bulk of the lineup healthy and kicking some ass.

The epic playoff battles of the late 90s and early 00s this is not. But with the NUUUUUUGE, Eberle and or Hall in the lineup anything can happen including a 15-3 win tonight where the game is called after two periods invoking a rarely used mercy rule in the NHL.*

THE FICKLE GODS OF HOCKEY

We have several buddies who wring their hands and lament the Oilers injury woes in the past few seasons. “How is it that the Oil can have so many guys on the shelf at the same time?” they cry. “It seems as though the Gods of Hockey are still trying to crush Edmonton. What have we done to deserve this curse?”

Any team coming off back to back last place seasons and looking to follow up strongly with a bottom 3 finish this year would have a tough time making the case that they are anything less than abandoned by those on Mt. Olympus.

We can look to a variety of supernatural reasons why the Oilers have lost an amazing 6,456 man games per season to injury these last few years.** We can shake our fists to the sky and curse the Gods of Hockey for letting Hall get his coconut stepped on in warm up or blowing out the Nuge’s shoulder while he skated solo along the boards. We can blame them for Khabibulin and Souray and the curse of Pronger hanging over the squadron like a black cloud of suck.

But at some point the Oilers will manage to stay healthy as a team for a full season. And when that happens they will undoubtedly slingshot upwards in the standings leaving mouths hanging open all around the league. Then these same Gods we scream at in the middle of the night might start looking a bit kinder.

IT'S ALREADY STARTING

Where do the Oilers powerplay rank in the league? Would you believe they are in 1st? FIRST PLACE? When is the last time the 29th place team in the league had a powerplay that hot? In 1946. That long ago.*** And the penalty killing is currently sitting in 14th place which is a damn sight better than it used to be back in the dark days.

What if all of the bizarre injuries, holdouts, refusals to sign with the team that we have been so loudly cursing as the Gods of Hockey forsaking us these past few years were actually these same Gods hooking it up big time in Edmonton?

Will bloggers years from now ask “now how on Earth did the first season of Eberle and Hall playing together result in the Oilers drafting the Nuge first overall? How did Eberle finish top 10 in league scoring, the Nuge win the Calder and yet the Oilers still picked (insert stud D here) in the top 5 next year?"

How did they get so lucky?

THATS THEN WHAT ABOUT NOW?

Tonight’s game probably won’t be remembered in a year.The Oil are playing far too well to have a chance to catch the Shitanusly Bad CBJ who currently sit at 45 measly points, 9 points back of the Mighty Oil. Fate has already dealt us our hand for the 2011-12 season and ain't no game 64 gonna change that no time soon.

Having eloquently said that though Los Nuge has been stealthily awesome since his return from the IR and the other big two are rolling along too. Gagner remains hot and ever since Nick Schultz declared "there are lots of sexy players on this team" in his opening press conference we have enjoyed watching him play. It ain't all bad in Oil City.

The Stars on the other hand need this game as they are in a dogfight to squeak into the playoffs. The Oil have the chance to play spoiler to a variety of mediocre teams for the remainder of the season before vaulting into the upper echelon of the league.

Sending the Stars home with a loss would be a good start tonight.

USE ME UP

Stupid Landeskog was named Rookie of the Month in February according to the often wrong NHL.com website. This is going to stop as the NUUUUUUUUGE returns to the lineup on the regular and begins showing all those old jackasses what a rookie really looks like.

Nuge wins the Calder. You read it here first.

FACT CHECKING FOOTNOTES

*That's a rule. Look it up.

**Actual stat, we looked it up on a website you have never heard of.

*** Actual stat too, though you might find some bunk source of information that will claim it has happened since.

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I'm going all Tonya Harding on Barker's knee if he steps foot on the ice tonight! Player's parking lot can be a dark, lonely place after the games.

Also, my cousins Evgenei and Sergei don't say much, yet they can be very persuasive. Maybe it's because they wear track suits and drive used Cadillacs, I don't know. What I do know is they "not like Barker" and think "Coach's future not like Oilers. Is dark."

Please please please let the Oilers play Dubnyk and Barker tonight, and give the 8th wonder of the world (Shawn Horcoff) 28 minutes tonight please. I'm a little uncomfortable with Montreal,Carolina and the Islanders being so close to us in the standings. Regulation loss please...

http://oilers.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=33403
Petrell with Eberle and Nuuuuge? Renney must still be suffering from the concussion.
too bad we don't have a spot in the top 6 for Omark to see what he's got

Please please please let the Oilers play Dubnyk and Barker tonight, and give the 8th wonder of the world (Shawn Horcoff) 28 minutes tonight please. I'm a little uncomfortable with Montreal,Carolina and the Islanders being so close to us in the standings. Regulation loss please...

Hey Oilers, make a difference! Flames 2 points further from the playoffs, Oilers two points closer to the second pick.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I think everyone should read this article. It answers some questions I had about the Oilers org leading up to the Hemsky signing, and actually makes me feel a bit better. Clearly Tambo knows nothing about stats or media or hockey, but at least some people in the org are looking at stats to help make their decisions.

Mark Fistric is the key to that Dallas defence. Oilers couldn't get anything going and avoided his side when he was on the ice. None of the kids wanted anything to do with him. Fistric was just a one man wrecking crew it seemed tonight.

The Oilers need a soft dump into his corner so he has no other option but to chase the puck down instead of doing more damage to Oiler wingers. Dump the puck in his corner and run him through the friggin glass. Till the Oilers show the Stars they can match them hit for hit and not be intimidated like tonight, they're likely to come out on the short end most nights....men against boys tonight again.

What up with Nick Schultz...don't the Oilers have a kid exactly like him down in Oklahoma by the name of Alex Plante? A pretty good puck moving d'man gone for nothing more than magic friggin beans!

Do you just write this stuff to hear yourself bitch all the time?

Guys like you make me feel ashamed to be an Oiler fan...

FYI that great puck moving d-man has no points in 3 games now for Minny averaging over 2 mins per game on the PP.....just how is his outstanding puck moving working out for Minny?

30th place in 2010, 30th again in 2011 and 29th in 2012, yeah, there's no room for criticism. We should all be dreaming in technicolor like you, you idiot. Oiler fans like you who feel what's happened the last 3 yrs is acceptable make me sick. Don't live on your knees, get up on your feet and have a little pride, loser.

I somehow managed to read all of this thinking: "Man, Gregor is awesomely channeling Wanye today! He should post in other people's voices more often!" Only to come to obvious-in-retrospect realization that Wanye is in fact the author of this column.

at any rate... you got any lineups for us Wanye? Is barker going out tonight? Or, was he led into a broom closet by m-and-ms. If the former, we lose 5-1. Goal by Gagner. If the latter we lose 4-3 Goals by Gagner, Hemsky, Eberle.

I dont understand why MPS gets sent down and Petrell skates on top lines. I would really like to know how MPS gets confidence when he isn't given a good opportunity to succeed on the big club.

He is getting a great opportunity in OKC to play some awesome games and make a run for the Calder Cup and there is nothing wrong with that. Other players would be going to if they were able. They need to give as many players as possible a sense of winning and that wont happen in the NHL right now.

Also I base wins and losses right now on whether or not Barker is playing. If Barker plays I assume a loss and if hes not then a win. Sad but True.

Relax,QB, Montreal is our only real worry and their fans wouldn't tolerate a total tank job like ours will. The stealth Fail for Mikhail includes, tonight, Lennert "Hands of Stone" Pettrel on the first line. Could the Oilers intentions be any clearer? They may not know how to hold a third period lead, but by God they have shown for the last two years how to manage the lottery. They won't fail us now, don't worry.

I doubt Souray fights Eager and Hordi as both were not part of the team and no anger there, unless he roughs up the Kids then all bets are off.

In the end I think that Souray knows his actions were inappropriate - the rest of the NHL seems to agree as well hence the long sit in Hershey. Would I sign him back? I would say no as we have what he gives and more, and younger. Let someone else take a chance on those glass hands and shoulders.

As for the game tonight, I'm kind of excited to see big Lennart playing with some talent. I think what Renney is doing is adding some defensive awareness to the top line. Petrell skates well for a big guy, and he occasionally shows some good hands when making quick plays with the puck on the PK.

Still, I'll be surprised if the Oilers win tonight. Dallas is a big, tough, defensive team that's pushing for a playoff spot.

Other than Petry there was really nothing that great about the period... was also hoping to only see Petrell for a few shifts with Eberle and Nuge before Renney woke up but I guess that didn't happen...